Stardock&rsquo;s Response to PC Gamer UK and RPS

There was an article posted earlier today on PC Gamer UK outlining some of the frustrations that the reviewer had with the pre-day 0 version of the game as well as a problem he was having with tactical battles.

In the article, he quoted an inflammatory forum posting I made on a site I participate in called Quarter to Three. This is a site I’ve been a participant in for many years and many of the people I discuss things on there are personal friends of mine.

During one such exchange with my friend Ben Sones, I angrily responded with a statement “Ben, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don’t buy our games.”

This comment was totally out of line and I apologize for it. It was made in the heat of a ~2000 comment long thread and is not how I honestly feel. Ben’s a friend of mine and his comment that the game felt like a “beta” to him upset me and I responded inappropriately. I post a lot on many forums and unfortunately, sometimes the things I say are inappropriate or inflammatory.

As the CEO of Stardock, I want to be clear that my comments on the Quarter to Three forums do not reflect my team at large. They were words spoken out of frustration and sleep deprivation and I am truly sorry. We stand behind what we feel is a great product, one that we will continue to support for a number of years.

With regards to a post on Rock Paper Shot Gun, which picked up the PC Gamer UK story, they erroneously point to a 2+ year old URL to a Stardock news item that is no longer active (we switched news systems a year or so ago). Their article falsely implies that we have stepped away from our commitment to the Gamer’s Bill of Rights.

The site, www.gamersbillofrights.org was set up and is run by Stardock. We stand by it. It is, with some irony, our commitment to no DRM on our DVD release that ultimately caused the rough pre-release experience of Elemental. Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.

However, it also became clear that the pre-day 0 version of the game was problematic as outlined in the PC Gamer UK article. The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described. That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop.

I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports.

I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.

The gave it 9.4/10, using an amazing amount of positive adjectives at release and I quote the beginning paragraph:

This is the grandest, most spectacular work of strategy gaming on the PC. If you've not tackled a Total War game before, or assume that they're not for you, I challenge you to play Empire and not be impressed, or even fundamentally changed by the experience. This is one of the most playable, and therefore important and accomplished, games ever created.

Yet they totally failed to mention that the game was extremely buggy at release, have thousands of gamers not being able to play it at all due to constant crashing. Not to mention a large amount of in-game bugs, like the AI not doing any naval invasions (this particular bug took them many many months to fix). Basically they gave a glowing review of the game probably without playing it longer than a few hours.

It just shows how they can be a bit hypocritical about things like this, hugely bashing one game for buggy release, while on the other hand highly praising another buggy game at release.

And I did buy that game at release, so I know exactly how the situation was back then.

The reason I play stardock games and love them is frog for one, he says it the way it is. No ass kissing, no fumbling around with words. While it is pretty obvious to anyone with any brains that a comment like that is more for the concept of "hey, we do our best, give us a break we always fix our stuff to be launch worthy" at least they do it and with a history to prove it. Numerous companies release titles and could careless after if they have a budget for "fixing it". Stardock always has and seems always will improve and fix their games. Tis why many of us are devoted to the stardock logo.

Alas frog, it's nice to clear the air per say, but in all honesty you owe nothing to anyone. They will rip you apart if your nice or if your not, all depending on what they get out of it. I am not shocked at all by the comments at pc gamer uk, they always have had and will have a chip on their shoulder thinking their shit don't stink. I have yet to read one thing from them "ever" that actually fit what the general populace and or user base of games think.

In any regard, kudos to you for saying it the way it is, I love the game and everything you guys produce. Keep up the good work and never be a stranger here. It is one of the reasons we love the company, all of you talk to us and let us have a voice. That alone makes you the top dogs in the strategy side of the gaming industry alone.

no worries here, your alot braver than me. you stand up a human being with a name among the massive anonymous internet. this is a daunting task not for the faint of heart. a person can only take so much criticism before they crack, even if they do try to not show it. i know that it would be easy to slip back into the unknown masses, but you persevere, and you do it for the majority of us that appreciate what you do. i hope that you can remain strong, and just remember that you have alot more supporters standing behind you than foes standing in front of you.

not to mention btw that i would much rather have the game with a few bugs now than next year.

So what you have displayed is that your are passionate and wear your heart on a sleeve. I wonder how all of us would react after three plus years of development, and someone is taking potshots at your product. I mean the game has been out for 48 plus hours and they have been working tirelessly to fix the problems. I can understand where you are coming from and know that most of the community supports you all. Keep up the good work and don't let the naysayers get to you.

As more should have said, the 0 day game is very cool. VERY COOL. There are so many things going for it. It's really moddable and you've said many times it would take a long time to get the balance down.

Would I have released it a little later after more polish to make it more fun? Yes; there are features I would like to have seen there, but a) I'm not you I don't know all the factors going into your decision.

Just keep making it better and better--ignore them. Nobody makes statues to critics.

I bought the game to support the genre and in hopes it would become the best TBS game ever. Prove me right!

I dont see any problems. Sure the game is a little buggy, but such is the case for games released before they are released. I get angry when people get the game before its technicly out and make reviews on that, instead of the final product, and dont recognize its by the grace of the developers that pre-orders get to play even a different version a littler earlier. As for the exchange of words, it happens. I understand you are a representitive of your company, but people should understand things might get said when under constant criticism, i cant blame anyone for getting angry.

As I've been dealing with this (I wasted the better part of yesterday fighting with the alleged release version, which was at best a beta until the 1.05 patch, which came out well into the day the game was supposedly released and was still fairly broken), I still cannot fathom why release wasn't delayed. As disappointing as that would've been, my current experience has been far more disappointing, and I think my own view will be colored by this experience even if the issues are fixed. This is also the last time I'll buy anything from Stardock on launch day.

My bigger issue, though, is with the lack of communication. I understand that some stores broke the street date, and you put out the beta so those of us who ordered a downloadable version wouldn't be left out. That's great. But I was told the game was "released," and went into it expecting a certain level of quality as a result, a level that was not there. And I was told by Stardock employees on these forums that I was being unrealistic.

I've been wandering these forums for the last couple days hoping for some sense of contrition or even humility from Stardock, and I haven't found one. The non-apology apology above doesn't come close. It sounds like he regrets saying it out loud, but still thinks it. So, I think I'm off to do other things and will check back with Elemental in a couple months and see if things are better. I don't buy games new very often (this was the first I've bought in several months), and this is why. Stardock was a company I trusted not to botch a launch the way others have, or at least be open about it if they did. I'm sorry my trust was misplaced.

I have always liked Stardock and purchased their games, even, in some cases, when I didn't like them personally. Simply because of how much and how obviously Brad and crew care for what they do.

In fact, I intend to purchase the Special Edition today *because* of the PC Gamer and RPS reviews.

Fact is, the reviews are just unnaceptable as they are. Sure, the game has game-breaking bugs for a large number of players. But a "Do not buy" order? When EA or Atari or Ubisoft release terrible or broken games, they still get a luke-warm review at worst, but I have *never* seen this type of attack, and they should be given the benefit of the doubt, in light of their stance on DRM, and their attention to the players.

I have worked in advertising in the past, and usually when this happens, its because a company has no stake in the review (i.e. preferential treatment agreements). Simply put, EA threatens to stop giving them exclusive interviews, so they get good reviews on crap software, but Stardock does not play favorites, so they get the short end of the stick.

Sadly, I personally think that their stance on DRM and their loyal custmer base are the cause of this. If the big guys can't compete, the best to way to even the playfield is to throw mud. There have been a few public instances of journalists either tampering or completely fabricating reviews, and of showing preferential treatment (any of the Madden games, for instance, that were horribly broken at release, but still got +90 scores, or the Empire: Total War review mentioned by a previous poster).

Good work Stardock, keep fighting the good fight, and I will keep buying your games.

I don't know if it's already been posted, but it appears that Giant Bomb is adding fuel to the fire as well. Truly sad, as I think that Elemental is a truly great game with potential for being incredibly great!

Something I thought was funny about their post was the following, in which they think that frogboy is simply a game representative!:

Furthermore, a game representative for Stardock has commented on the Elemental forums stating that the game's multiplayer mode should be enabled sometime next week.

Now, a couple words on multiplayer. The servers are up but we are not going to enable multiplayer until next week. Part of this is, to be honest, team exhaustion. The early release meant a lot of people who were expecting this weekend off to rest from the grueling last few weeks had to come in. So we’re going to let them get a couple of days off later this week and open up the MP next week.

That article is painfully right. I love the idea of Elemental and I new the beta versions will be faulty. However at the moment of the release the game is not playable. I have two computers at my disposal (one new, one old) and Elemental does not work on neither one. This is really a disaster. I still believe in Stardock and I believe this game will be great after some time. It is very unfortunate, that Brad promised the game will be released when it is ready. However the programmers had not enough time to finish their job and the game was released prematurly.

Lol. What kind of infantile human being writes an article about a video game, includes a personal quote from the CEO of the independent publisher/developer that created the game (a personal quote and that shows clear frustration through a command from said CEO to another person(hell, a friend) telling the person(friend) to "stay away" from a product that the CEO's independent video game publisher/developer made)?

I would disregard the writer's article for its off-topicality and for the writer's lack of understanding of human behavior. When I read a video game article, I want to hear about the game, not something the CEO of the company that made the game said on a forum he goes to for conversing with people on a personal level. Either the writer was ignorant of the fact or was trying to write persuasively(rather poorly, for he assumed people wouldn't first investigate the matter before making a conclusion, or that they simply wouldn't care and listen to the writer's every word without question). That is seriously primitive behavior.

If it were me in your position, I'd have a lengthy explanation regarding this writer and his astonishingly thoughtless qualities. Then again I am of an abnormal type, and I'd just as soon sell the corporation and retire, giving any excess money to the Venus Project for expanding global awareness on that matter

Brad, you were in no way "In the wrong" and I apologize on the part of society if you feel or think that you are. People are allowed to say what you did without being thrown on the center stage for mass ridicule. It seems to be the lack of awareness of human behavior and how the mind and body works that caused this behavior that is anathema to I.

EDIT: Lol I just realized that I didn't say what i meant about the issue being a result of ignorance of human behavior and how the mind and body works. Also, my comments seem a bit harsh in and of themselves on that matter in regards to the author of the gaming article of question. To clarify that, it seems to me that I understand his behavior and why he would exhibit it, but nonetheless, the writer's behavior intentionally persuades some people and modifies their perceptions to become negative towards Stardock for reasons that do not pertain to the function of the Stardock company and that saddens me . It is the understanding exhibited in this paragraph that the writer of that article lacks/lacked when he wrote that article and it is for that reason that this horrible mess took place :/

The internet is the internet, and you have to be painfully careful what you say on it when you're in a position such as you are. I hope you are able to get some good rest and not let all the hoop-la eat at you too much

Time heals all wounds, and eventually the craziness will settle down and the merits of the game will be discussed rather than the merits of the release.

People demanding that a PC game is completely perfected at release, where have they been hiding the past 20 years? Every serious gamer knows that it takes several patches for most PC games to reach their destined quality. As long as the developer completes that post-release part of the process, everything is all right. Part of the deal, so to speak. Why should Elemental be critizised for following the industry norm?

I also admire both your honesty and determination, Brad. Don't listen too much to those that don't appreciate your work of art.

And regardless of how great Elemental is, or if it turns out to be a failure, supporthing the effort of making a game like this is worth the purchase. Actually just the beta process has been more fun than most games I've played! And I sense it is only the beginning...

PC gamers DON'T expect perfection on release but as someone who bought the box version of this game, this is to put it mildly a huge Day 0/1 F*ck up. And the problem also extends to the fact that Demigod had a pretty damn bad launch, with multiplayer being fixed only 1-2 months after launch.

I have to disagree with many of the posters here and remove Stardock from my list of reputable gaming companies. If holding the game back 1-2 months would fix the issues then why was this game released now instead of 1-2 months later?

I personally could care less about the CEO's remarks and all that other jazz. (Although it does call into question the CEO's capabilities. Remember a CEO is NOT a normal person. They run a company and are responsible for the jobs of everyone in that company. ) All I care about is the game that I paid $49.99 for. And right now... Stardock's MO, seems to be creating games which have huge potential several months after release but plagued with game breaking bugs at launch.

Personally I don't believe you should have apologized for your comments. Here's why.

1. You have a reputation as an upfront businessman (ie. say what you mean and mean what you say). That applies always. Sure sleep deprivation etc. can modify statements/comments and if those statements/comments are taken out of context they can appear to have more "zest" than you might have intended but that is you. You are upfront. Stay that way.

2. Like any good businessman you have yourself invested on a personal level in this project. That is a good thing! It certainly is another reason so many people do purchase your products, they know you believe in them.

3. Taking points 1 and 2 into consideration (which anyone who comes comes here quickly recognizes by your heavy community involvement) the only thing that could hurt you is being inconsistent. Bad press is still nothing more than press (not firsthand experience) and any individual buying or not buying a product based solely on press (good or bad) is foolish and probably not the kind of customer your business-model has always been geared towards anyway.

I've been in business a long time as well, and one very important realization I came upon many years ago is that some people are just not monk-customers.....wouldn't matter what I did/said......just the way the cookie crumbles.

In closing.....stay true to yourself always Brad.....it's what we love about you.....the rest of it is just chaff!

Nice that you took responsibility for your comments... then again, the after spending about 10 hours with the lastest hot-fixed 1.05 version, it is still loaded with bugs.

Consumers have ever right to expect a fairly bug-free experience, after all, my money came to you 100% bug-free, and the game isnt there yet. Therefore, I have to agree with the critics, and feel you actually didn't go far enough in taking responsibility for the current state of the game. It is a bugfest, and it's pretty much that simple.

That said, I'm fine with my purchase and have every confidence that the bugs and balance issues will be worked out.

I'm also personally glad that it was released when it was, as I was tired of waiting for the game. I do feel for gamers who have less tolerance than me for bugs though.

I have no doubt that this game will be really great and fairly bug-free within a month or so. It has great potential, that's for sure! I'm having fun with it, warts and all.

More often than not, I usually wait to until I have a chance to read reviews before I purchase a game, and in the case of most single-player games (or the games where my only interest is SP), I usually wait until there is a sale or price-drop before purchasing.

Elemental is a rare early-purchase for me, and I justified making this decision based upon Stardock's history of supporting their products long after launch. As with most games these days, I don't expect any launch to be mostly bug-free (it would be nice, though, right?). So far, in the 72 hours (or is it 96 now?) since the early release, the effort I've seen from Stardock gives me every reason to believe that I won't regret my decision.